Joe Aston: Inside the Qantas Story, the Dark Side of Power & the Cost of Speaking Out

Sarah Grynberg (0:00)

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Joe Aston is one of Australia's most influential business journalists. For more than a decade, his AFR column rear window became required reading in boardrooms across the country.

Sharp, fearless, and often controversial, he built a reputation for holding some of Australia's most powerful people to account, exposing corporate scandals and uncovering stories many wished had never seen the light of day. In today's conversation, we talk about the making of his AFR column rear window. What separates a good story from a great one, the investigations that brought down some of corporate Australia's biggest names, including Alan Joyce and Alex Malley, his battle with alcoholism, the changing media landscape and why he believes conspiracy theories are reshaping public trust.

Joe Aston (1:25)

This guy Alex Malley, who ran the CPA Australia, he had written this book about his life. It was a bestseller, though it was unclear how that was possible. I started writing about it every day. It turned out that he had sort of colonised this organisation by becoming its president, getting his mates appointed to the board with him. Getting himself appointed CEO.

And then set about spending millions and millions of dollars on making himself famous.

Sarah Grynberg (2:01)

I'm Sarah Grynberg, and this is A Life Of Greatness.

Through my years of studying and researching the connection between human behaviour, personal growth and transformation, I have discovered the keys to unlocking greatness within others. In this podcast, I share stories and experiences from my own teachings, along with conversations with inspiring guests to help you learn the simple tips, habits, practices and strategies to cultivate an extraordinary existence. My hope is that this conversation reminds you of the importance of asking difficult questions, thinking critically and having the courage to stand by your convictions. Because progress isn't driven by people who follow the crowd, but by those willing to challenge it. Joe Aston, welcome to A Life Of Greatness podcast.

Joe Aston (2:56)

Thanks for having me, Sarah.

Sarah Grynberg (2:57)

A lot of people know you as the man behind Rear Window, which was obviously a column that you wrote for many, many years. I mean, you still write for the Fin Review now, but that was your everyday column. And I was thinking about that. I thought, how the hell did you find anything to write about every single day? That's like big cadence.

Joe Aston (3:20)

I think back to it now and I wonder. Because now, I write for the Financial Review once a month, but as many people know, I have my own publication, Rampart, and I tend to write for Rampart one to two times a week, which is much more comfortable with. And one of the reasons that I started Rampart, I mean, there were quite a few reasons, but one of them was definitely the fact that after a dozen years writing a daily, a week daily column for the AFR, I was so sort of burned out by that pressure.

Sarah Grynberg (3:50)

Yeah.

Joe Aston (3:51)

And I was, what I was hungry to do was to be able to go deeper into a subject in less of a rush. I mean, ultimately, if you have to churn something out every single day, it's not as well researched.

You rely much more on sort of just being funny, as opposed to really going into the subject and becoming more expert at it. And it's just not as good a journalism product as it could be. And what it tends to do, I mean, everyone behaves, everyone responds according to their incentives. So if you get up in the morning as if someone has to write five columns a week, you're highly incentivised to write about something you've already written about recently because you don't have to start from scratch. So that's why quite often at the Financial Review, you found that I was running campaigns on Alan Joyce, or on Rio Tinto, or on Alex Malley from the CPA Australia. Those kinds of things that became running stories in reality, weren't just because they were compelling, but because it was just easier for me to get up and go, okay, how do I kick this story forward where I've already done the groundwork and I already know what's going on? I can just kick it forward incrementally, which is a lot easier than becoming expert or like getting across the material of a whole new story today.